Strong Executives – Moon of Alabama

March 9, 2006

Strong Executives

In an column about Putin and Bush Jim Hoagland has this quote:

"The powers of the presidency have been eroded and usurped to the breaking point. We are engaged in a new kind of war that cannot be fought by old methods. It can only be directed by a strong executive who alone is not subject to the conflicting pressures that legislators or judges face. The public understands and supports that unpleasant reality, whatever the media and intellectuals say."

Russian or American source?
(Don´t cheat, guess.)

Posted by b on March 9, 2006 at 23:36 UTC | Permalink

Comments

“a new kind of war” is a phrase which alerts one to the speaker’s love of this war, and desire to have others love it too. People still don’t see it though. The problem is that the statement can’t be disproved. After all maybe it will be a new kind of war. All you can do is, after the fact, observe that oh, well, I guess it turned out to be the same kind of war after all.

Posted by: correlator | Mar 9 2006 23:59 utc | 1

That’s the first thing that that lackey has written in 5 years that was half worth reading.
Must have gone through kool-aid detox, or something.
But, there’s always tomorrow(.

Posted by: Groucho | Mar 10 2006 0:43 utc | 2

I cheated b. There, I admit, I’m guilty. But I could have guessed those wrod came from Bushie’s WH. They are power crazed and the real power behind the thrown, Cheney, really does believe the President should be king.

Posted by: jdp | Mar 10 2006 1:46 utc | 3

“Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done? Most barbarous, most degenerate! Have you madded?
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
[else] It will come: Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep. As Lear Jet-winged vampiroyals, See thyself, Devil!”

Posted by: PingPing | Mar 10 2006 3:22 utc | 4

Kool-aid, as in trying to keep up with the Jim Joneses as they each build their People’s Temple. Each look to the other to see how much they can get away with and then up the ante. ‘I see your World Trade Center and I’ll raze you a Chechnya.’

Posted by: biklett | Mar 10 2006 5:56 utc | 5

Bush has already demonstrated how much use he has for “unpleasant realities”

Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 10 2006 7:51 utc | 6

From Capitol Hill Blue, a report of a direct encounter with the panopticon turning on jounalists who publish reports based on unsanctioned leaks from sources that are not pre-approved by the Executive.

As part of the investigation, the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency are wiretapping reporters’ phones, following journalists on a daily basis, searching their homes and offices under a USA Patriot Act provision that allows “secret and undisclosed searches” and pouring over financial and travel records of hundreds of Washington-based reporters.
… In recent weeks, the FBI has issued hundreds of “National Security Letters,” directing employers, banks, credit card companies, libraries and other entities to turn over records on reporters. Under the USA Patriot Act, those who must turn over the records are also prohibited from revealing they have done so to the subject of the federal probes.
… Just how widespread, and uncontrolled, this latest government assault has become hit close to home last week when one of the FBI’s National Security Letters arrived at the company that hosts the servers for this web site, Capitol Hill Blue.
The letter demanded traffic data, payment records and other information about the web site along with information on me, the publisher.
Now that’s a problem. I own the company that hosts Capitol Hill Blue. So, in effect, the feds want me to turn over information on myself and not tell myself that I’m doing it. You’d think they’d know better.
I turned the letter over to my lawyer and told him to send the following message to the feds:
Fuck you. Strong letter to follow.

Posted by: small coke | Mar 10 2006 21:12 utc | 7

Joe Bageant replies to a reader on this topic.

Natalie,
Thank you for the kind words.
You are so right on about most ordinary people now seeing the US as a benevolent hegemon, the stern father of the global kids. Liberals cannot imagine that this is a majority viewpoint in America now.
Nor do they (we) accept the fact that we libs had a lot of power for over 30 years in this country. And we failed to stand up and fight to free as many of our brothers and sisters as possible from ignorance. Instead of hammering out a system that guarantees every American a good education and health care, we succumed to capitalist consumerism just the same as any redneck buying his Dale Earnheart memorial beer cooler. And the more educated affluent libs really believe they deserve it (just like the less affluent ones feel they are better than the blindly ignorant worker with the plumber’s butt who wants to bomb France.) I did it too. I was flying to England and getting drunk in elite company while millions of Americans, driven like borrowed mules to produce and keep their blue collar jobs in this country, just got dumber and dumber and less empowered.
Liberals cannot just keep on saying it was the red state working class’s own choice. In this country, in this age, it’s just not that simple. I have numerous boyhood friends here who are lots smarter than I am, yet they got propaganda instead of education. Education is dangerous stuff to our emerging corpocracy. Even more dangerous is the notion that we are all in this together, liberal, redneck, jew, muslim and black … janitor, pipefitter, book editor, teacher and dancer. I fear it will take a total collapse for people to look up and see that we are all of the same mortal flesh with the same basic interests in the face of those who would and do control us to their owns ends.
Surely all of us as Americans have failed the first test of civilization: Wealth.

Posted by: citizen | Mar 10 2006 22:48 utc | 8

Geez, small coke, I wish that report had come from anyone other than Capitol Hill Blue, when ever I post anything by them elsewhere i.e. on other boards, I always get flack saying the CHB is not a ligit news organization.
However, if this report, (and I suspect it’s worse than it sounds as far as secrect motives)is that systemic others will soon follow and there will be hell to pay.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 10 2006 23:25 utc | 9

Parsippany, NJ High School students stage mock trial of GB for war crimes.

TRENTON, N.J. — A mock war crimes trial of President George W. Bush at a Parsippany high school continued Friday, despite criticism from people across the nation who heard about the classroom exercise from a prominent Web site and talk-radio programs.
Parsippany-Troy Hills School District interim Superintendent James Dwyer said the hearing in the 12th grade politics and government class would continue, but a verdict by a five-teacher “international court of justice” panel would not be rendered as originally planned.

Sounds like those students are getting an education, alright.

Posted by: citizen | Mar 10 2006 23:32 utc | 10

‘Washington Post’ To Cut 80 Newsroom Jobs, Sources Say
“We figures since we’re not really doing any news any more, just ads and the White House Press releases, we didn’t need those, um, what do you call them, reporters any longer.”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 11 2006 0:31 utc | 11

@ Uncle $cam
“…others will soon follow”
Seems unlikely that will is the operative tense here, except in the sense of “more to come” in a continuing lineage of past thuggeries, intimidations, and violations of free speech, free press & privacy.
Whether we will hear much of such transgressions from the press with career goals or significant capital investments in various media is a greater question. According to this particular snooping “law”, it is forbidden to squeal and tell. CHB might be seen as bending the law a bit in letting us know about the FBI inquiry. They can’t be said to break the law, since, when the FBI contacted Thompson as owner of the website, they also notified him as the subject of the FBI inquiry (snoopee?).
Yep, I’ve seen CHB dismissed as a news report around the web. But most of what they report rings true, and some of the more original reports have proven pretty accurate when MSM media caught on. I figure Doug Thompson probably still has plenty of contacts around town from his days as a lobbyist for the Real Estate interests.

Posted by: small coke | Mar 11 2006 1:14 utc | 12

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